Test for blood disorder will save taxpayers millions

CORK University Hospital has developed a test for a blood disorder which will save the taxpayer millions of euro, it has emerged.

The development has been hailed as a perfect example of what health service reconfiguration can achieve.

“This is the kind of positive outcome you get when you have key individuals working together to devise a better clinical service,” said Professor John Higgins, the director of reconfiguration for the HSE South.

The three main hospitals in Cork were, until the middle of last year, outsourcing thousands of tests for haemochromatosis – an iron storage disorder – to private labs in Britain at a cost of up to €125 a test.

As part of the reconfiguration of the health service in the southern region, a better and more comprehensive testing system has been developed in Cork University Hospital (CUH), spelling the end of outsourcing.

In 2008, CUH outsourced 2,100 haemochromatosis tests costing €260,000. Mercy University Hospital (MUH) and South Infirmary Victoria Hospital (SIVH) also outsourced thousands of tests.

An analysis of the new in-house CUH test system, which was presented to medics yesterday, shows huge benefits to patients, GPs, and taxpayers.

It estimates the cost to CUH of haemochromatosis testing over the next 12 months at just over €70,000 – a €180,000 saving on outsourcing. If this saving is repeated in other hospitals, the overall saving to the taxpayer will be immense.

Dr John O’Mullane, consultant clinical biochemist at CUH, who chaired the group which developed the system, said it puts the “patient centre stage”.

“Reconfiguration is about delivering proper clinical governance and delivering a better quality of service to patients, but it also can also deliver value for money.”